Listen "Granite"
Episode Synopsis
For 25 years the sculptor Peter Randall-Page has worked Dartmoor's obdurate and unforgiving granite boulders. He reflects on what it's like trying to wrestle with it: "granite is stuff personified, quintessentially dumb matter, it is what the earth is made of, congealed magma, planetary and galactic, inert and unintelligible." Peter's is the third of four essays in which writers and artists reflect on the way their bedrock geology - their cornerstones - have shaped their favourite landscapes. Peter Randall-Page realises that he's worked his way back through geological time to work with granite: "beginning with the relatively young sedimentary limestone of Bath, through the metamorphic marble of Carrara to the most ancient material of granite."In the other essays, Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground reflects on her favourite limestone landscapes, the walker and geologist Ronald Turnbull addresses sandstone and the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke addresses the human dimension of mining Snowdonia's slate.Producer: Mark Smalley.
More episodes of the podcast The Essay
Digging for Words
31/03/2025
Workplace performance
31/03/2025
The crime of creation
31/03/2025
Mothers on trial
31/03/2025
Land Cinema
31/03/2025
The intimacy of radio
31/03/2025
Birth Stories
31/03/2025
Losing Yourself in Books
31/03/2025
A Philosophical Forgery?
31/03/2025
Technicolor Wars
31/03/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.